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Actions against exploitation at Topy Top on Saturday October 9th!

Submitted by admin on Wed, 10/06/2010 - 00:00

We have received an initiative from "Los Solidarios" in Peru and enclose a leaflet they have made. The terrific working conditions and exploitation in the textile firm are described. The appeal is also directed to the consumers of the ZARA, a firm which has shops in many places of the world (www.zara.com), and also other firms that use Topy Topy as a sub-contractor as INDIDEX. There will be actions against the exploitation on Saturday October 9th!

TO THE PUBLIC AND CONSUMERS OF ZARA

Exploitation in Topy, a top supplier for ZARA

The reality of the workers in the textile sector is currently dramatic and troubling. Despite the siren calls and the triumphalism of the last governments, with respect to the increase in productive employment and textile products in recent years, textile workers are the worst paid of the Economically Active Population and the most affected by the brutal onslaught of local entrepeneurs (with work shifts exceeding 12 hours in some cases and starvation wages). Powerful groups in the industry - such as the Flores Conislia family - violate and undermine the dignity and fundamental rights of Topy Top workers. A fundamental right in any "modern democracy", such as the right to unionize, is an affront to the owners of Topy Top. These people are systematically harrassing and arbitrarily firing all unionized workers - like on last May Day. The current corrupt government is passive and inert (perhaps complicit?) regarding this. Using blatant anti-union tactics, 35 workers were thrown into the street last May, without any reasons to justify this; they have been replaced.

Let us not allow these crimes and illegal actions committed by the Flores Conislia group and others who are favoured by an outdated labour system (which comes from the Morales Bermúdez dictatorship), which should be ammended without further delay.

We urge consumers to express their solidarity with the workers of Topy Top and textile workers in general.

Consumer: think each time that you buy something in ZARA, it was produced at the expense of the sacrifice and shameless exploitation of hundreds of workers, who are not given basic social benefits such as profit sharing bonuses, CTS (severance pay) and whose right to unionize is violated. Many of these workers are young people who deserve to be treated with dignity, without systematic harrassment and criminal anti-labour tactics characteristic of totalitarian regimes.